If Iraq legalises childhood marriage, it's time for us to look in the mirror

As children under nine-years-old could be legally married and wives forced to
comply with sexual demands in Iraq, Hannah Strange argues it is time
to engage with Iraq, rather than abandon it to the fate we, the West, have
largely created

Not a lot of good news comes out of Iraq these days. To be more accurate, not a lot of news comes out of Iraq at all, preferring as we apparently do to look away as the mess we made deepens behind us. The litany of almost daily bombings and terror attacks are reduced to the occasional, unembellished flash in the rolling tickers of international news channels, beneath reporters discussing the latest conflict to consume our attention. We have long since given up the pretence that we can do anything to pull Iraq out of the quagmire that is largely of the West’s making, and to confront the horrors of violence and growing extremism would be to come face to face with our own guilt, the bloodied shame that still stains our hands despite our best attempts to wash it away.

But here’sone piece of news that we must not ignore. On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament, in a shocking exchange of female sexuality for votes ahead of elections at the end of the month, tabled a draft law that would legalise marriage for children. The bill, the Jaafari law, doesn’t mention exactly from what age children would be able to wed but it does contain provisions for divorce for girls as young as nine, so we can do the maths on that one. It also effectively endorses marital rape by forcing women to submit to the sexual demands of their husbands and ensures that any wife entering into a divorce – whether of her own will or not - is punished with the loss of her children, by automatically granting the father custody of any offspring over the age of two.

That this law is even being considered – and it is most likely to go ahead, given its hearty endorsement by the Iraqi cabinet – makes me want to rip my own skin off, as it should do for anyone, regardless of gender, religion or culture, in short, anyone human, though that is rather stating the obvious. It is a tragic indictment of the slide into sectarianism that has been triggered by Western military intervention and which is now pushing the government into a cynical bid to woo votes in the majority Shia Muslim community, who, the bill’s proponents would apparently have us think, regard such a measure as a deep cultural imperative.

It is not, and I struggle to believe that it is truly regarded as so - beyond the minds of a few Middle Age-dwelling misogynists and extremists. Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister of Iraq and himself a Shia Muslim, has publicly disavowed the law as brimming with “injustices”, warning on Tuesday that its approval would lead to the abuse of women. Iraqi women themselves – I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that most of the bill’s advocates probably don’t hail from the female half of the community - have been lining up to condemn it; Hanaa Edwar, a prominent activist, has said it is a “crime against humanity” that “deletes” women’s rights and turns them into “tools for sexual enjoyment”. Another, Basma al-Kateeb, said it will enshrine “legalised inequality” in Iraq.

To put it even more bluntly, if this bill is passed, it is not only inequality that will be legalised but sex with children, and spousal rape. And on this we simply cannot stay silent. It is admittedly a treacherous line to tread - balancing the need to stand up for women around the world with respect for the will of a sovereign country, especially one in which our interference has brought very little except suffering and chaos.

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As long ago as 2006, the Iraqi human rights activist Yanar Mohammed complained to the press that in its pursuit of security and political ends, “the US has decided to let go of women’s rights”. Let’s be clear: women’s rights are not something to be traded. They must not be, to borrow that hideous military misnomer, collateral damage.

It’s time, not to interfere, but to engage with Iraq, rather than abandon it to the fate we have largely created. And if we choose, once again, to look the other way, we can no longer sigh as we so often do in the West that women’s lives are cheap “in other countries”. Instead we will have to take a long hard look in the mirror.